by

VivianRose

Girl, Interrupted is an intriguing movie about mental asylums in the 1960's.

Winona Ryder does an extraordinary job of playing Susannah, a young woman with a questionable "borderline" personality disorder. Sent to a mental hospital at age eighteen, she makes friends with the other girls - most of whom are far less sane than Susannah.

One of Susannah's friends is a loud, wild, and amusing girl named Lisa (Angelina Jolie). (According to her hospital file, she's a psychotic sociopath.) Lisa enjoys "pushing buttons" - at one point, she provokes a newly released patient to commit suicide. (Of course the girl was probably suicidal anyway, and might have done it at a later date if not provoked then, but Lisa pushed her over the edge.)

Girl, Interrupted reminded me of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, another fascinating movie about mental hospitals. Lisa is very similar to Jack Nicholson's R. P. MacMurphy of Cuckoo's Nest, in that she shakes up the hospital and causes trouble. Both movies were original and well-written, although the
endings - for some characters - were tragic.

I also enjoyed the cast of Girl, Interrupted. While Angelina Jolie is a perfect "crazy" Lisa, and Winona Ryder is enormously convincing as Susannah, Whoopi Goldberg is impressive as a nurse who clashes with Susannah on a few occasions.